A Guide to Pixels, Part 1: Options and Set-Up for Google, Facebook, and Beyond

This is the subhead for the blog post

3Q Accelerate Account Manager Taylor Scott contributed to this post.

Understanding tracking and the different tools that allow us to track, attribute, and measure the results of our efforts are vital to the work of digital marketers. In this series, we’ll cover pixels, which are at the heart of your tracking efforts.

What Are Pixels, and Why Do We Need Them?

Pixels are pieces of tracking code (or tools) that are placed on site, or through a tag management platform, that pass back information about your digital marketing efforts. They allow you to see which of your marketing efforts drove the user to complete the specified conversion, event, or marketing goal that you’re ultimately optimizing for. Pixels fire when a user has interacted with our ads (viewed, clicked, etc.) and then takes an established action on site:

Clicking specific buttons

Submitting a lead

Loading a specific page

Adding products to cart

Successful purchases

The list goes on

To summarize, pixels allow for even the “smallest” of actions/events to be measured, tracked, and optimized towards. They’re crucial to taking your digital marketing efforts to the next level!

Finding & Implementing Pixels

Pixels are found within their respective engines; however, the number of pixels needed, the implementation, and the nuances of each pixel vary by engine. This post will cover pixel options and set-up of major ad platforms; the second (hyperlink) will cover implementation guidelines. Let’s dive in.

Bing

Location in UI

Under the Conversion Tracking in the bottom-left corner:

Select View UET tags page.

Select Create UET tag:

After you have built and placed your UET tag, you need to create a conversion goal.

Under the Conversion Tracking in the bottom-left corner, select View conversion goals page:

Select Create conversion goal.

Options to choose from:

Destination URL

Track every time someone visits a web page as a conversion.

Duration

Track every time someone stays on a website for longer than a designated amount of time as a conversion.

Pages viewed per visit

Track every time someone visits more than a specified number of pages on your website as a conversion.

Event

Track every time someone completes a specific action, such as subscribing to newsletter or downloading whitepaper, as a conversion.

Mobile app install

Track every time someone installs your app as a conversion.

Offline conversions

Add offline conversions to Bing Ads.

Facebook

Location in UI

Under the upper-left dropdown, select Pixels:

Here you will see your client-specific pixel (or need to create a new one). If one is present, select the “Details” button.

Select “Set up” in the upper-right corner:

Choose the method for integration and set up from these options:

Use an Integration or Tag Manager.

Use a tag integration/manager system to easily install your code. This manager needs to be linked to the Facebook account.

Email Instructions to a Developer.

Install the pixel code yourself.

This method allows control but is a bit more time-consuming.

First you need to set up and install your overall Facebook Pixel.

Next, you need to install your standard events to track.

­

Google Ads

Location in UI

Under the Tools wrench in the upper-right corner:

Under the Measurement column

Select Conversions:

You’ll then create a conversion action, with the shown options, and then can customize these options to your business needs:

Name your conversion

Categorize the conversion:

Purchase/Sale

Sign-up

Lead

View of a key page

Other

Add valuation to your conversion

Use the same value for each conversion

Assign currency & value

Select this option if each conversion is worth the same amount to your business. Each time a conversion happens, Google Ads will record the value you enter here as the conversion value.

Use different values for each conversion

Select this option if the conversion value varies: for example, if you’re tracking purchases with different prices.

We’ll cover Google Tag Manager implementation for various tags/platforms in our next post!

LinkedIn

Location in UI

Insight Tag

Under the Account Assets menu dropdown

Access your unique LinkedIn Insight Tag JavaScript code.

Move your cursor over the Account Assets tab in the top navigation bar and select Insight Tag from the dropdown:

Copy the entire Insight Tag code from the window.

Add the JavaScript code to every page on your domain, preferably right before the end of the <body> tag in the global footer.

Add your domain(s) on the Configuration page:

Yahoo

Location in UI

Under the Wrench, in the upper-right corner:

Select View Dot tag code

There is only one type of tag for Yahoo/Oath. You create the Dot tag code and then place it on your desired page.

Once the tag is placed, ensure that you’re starting to see activity in the UI (within the next couple of days at most).

To conclude this “brief” introduction to pixels: planning, placement, and proper tracking are crucial to monitoring and measuring performance across engines. They differ a bit by channel, but understanding how to find them, how they work, and how to place/QA them is a vital part of digital marketing. We’ll be following up this blog post with another “brief” guide that focuses on implementation and QA’ing the pixels that you intend to use across your various digital marketing channels.

About the author

Jonathan Manthey

Jonathan joined 3Q Digital in January 2017. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Advertising and a minor in Spanish. Jonathan loves to travel and do everything active and outdoors, with a particular interest in thrill-seeking activities. In his free time, Jonathan can be found with friends and family or seeking out his next adventure.